Conduit 3 sneak peek: drive robots and move arms from your iPhone

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Since its release in January, Conduit has turned iPhone, iPad and Mac into ROS 2 sensor publishers. Conduit 3 adds the other direction: it subscribes to your robot and drives it. Here is a first look at a work-in-progress build. Both videos run in real time.

Mobile robots

  • Drive through the robot’s own camera. A Kachaka publishes its front camera as sensor_msgs/CompressedImage, which Conduit shows full screen with a minimap. The on-screen stick goes out as sensor_msgs/Joy in the ROS joy layout, and teleop_twist_joy on the robot side turns it into cmd_vel.
  • Pick any topic it publishes. Conduit discovers the robot’s topics live. Halfway through the video, the camera switches from the front camera to the back camera by picking it from that list.

Robot arms

  • Move the arm by moving the phone. Hold HOLD and Conduit turns the phone’s motion into geometry_msgs/TwistStamped for MoveIt Servo. The arm’s wrist camera fills the screen.
  • MoveIt poses. The Poses menu lists the poses in the robot’s MoveIt config (SRDF), and picking one moves the arm there.
  • Pick and place with the gripper. The arm here is a 6-axis arm in MuJoCo simulation.

Both run over Zenoh (rmw_zenoh_cpp) on ROS 2 Jazzy, using swift-ros2 3.0, with no bridge.

A change in how Conduit is priced

Conduit has outgrown its five separate in-app unlocks (Back Cameras, LiDAR, Game Controller, Background Mode, Recording Export), and more features are on the way. In 3.0:

  • Every feature, Robots included, unlocks for everyone. Free users get a weekly time allowance.
  • Conduit Plus, by subscription or a one-time purchase, removes the limit.
  • Founders: if you own any one of today’s in-app purchases, bought before 3.0 ships, Conduit Plus is yours forever.

Already in Conduit 2.5

  • ROS 2 Lyrical, alongside Humble, Jazzy, Kilted and Rolling.
  • REP-103 / REP-145 frames, and a /tf_static that follows the device’s mounting.
  • AR-aligned 16UC1 depth with camera_info, stamp-matched to RGB.
  • Publish only when subscribed.
  • Auto-reconnect after a router restart.
  • Game Controller in the ROS joy layout.

See it live

I’m demoing this tonight, Thursday, October 22, at ROS By-The-Bay at Intrinsic HQ in Mountain View:

App Store:

The release of the Conduit iOS app—transform your Apple devices into ROS 2 sensor publishers